perly.

But the thing is beyond me. I leave such considerations, then, to
Celestine, and resolve for the future rigorously to eschew all such
gauds. Meanwhile, if an untutored masculine description will content
you--

Margaret, I have on reliable feminine authority, was one of the very
few blondes whose complexions can carry off reds and yellows.
This particular gown--I remember it perfectly--was of a dim, dull
yellow--flounciful (if I may coin a word), diaphanous, expansive. I
have not the least notion what fabric composed it; but scattered about
it, in unexpected places, were diamond-shaped red things that I am
credibly informed are called medallions. The general effect of it may
be briefly characterised as grateful to the eye and dangerous to the
heart, and to a rational train of thought quite fatal.

For it was cut low in the neck; and Margaret's neck and shoulders
would have drawn madrigals from a bench of bishops.

And in consequence, Billy Woods ate absolutely no dinner that evening.

IX

It was an hour or two later when the moon, drifting tardily up from
the south, found Miss Hugonin and Mr. Kennaston chatting amicably
together in the court at Selwoode. They were discussing the deplorable
tendencies of the modern drama.

The court at Selwoode lies in the angle of the building, the ground
plan of which is L-shaped. Its two outer sides are formed by covered
cloisters leading to the palm-garden, and by moonlight--the night
bland and sweet with the odour of growing things, vocal with plashing
fountains, spangled with fire-flies that flicker indolently among a
glimmering concourse of nymphs and fauns eternally postured in flight
or in pursuit--by moonlight, I say, the court at Selwoode is perhaps
as satisfactory a spot for a _tete-a-tete_ as this transitory world
affords.

Mr. Kennaston was in vein to-night; he scintillated; he was also a
little nervous. This was probably owing to the fact that Margaret,
leaning against the back of the stone bench on which they both sat,
her chin propped by her hand, was gazing at him in that peculiar,
intent fashion of hers which--as I think I have mentioned--caused you
fatuously to believe she had forgotten there were any other trousered
beings extant.

Mr. Kennaston, however, stuck to apt phrases and nice distinctions.
The moon found it edifying, but rather dull.

After a little Mr. Kennaston paused in his boyish, ebullient speech,
and they sat in silence. The li